From a cave full of terrifying mummies to a horrible discovery on the wreckage of the
Titanic!
Here are ten strange and shocking discoveries!
10: The Kabayan Mummy Caves The Kabayan mummies go by a few different
names, such as the Ibaloi mummies and the Benguet mummies – but they are most commonly
known as the Philippine fire mummies.
The story behind them is nothing short of shocking.
Their exact location was kept secret by the government because of robberies in the 1900s.
We know where they are today, but they’re still so far away from civilization that the
only way to get there is to fly to the Philippines, take a 5-hour car ride deep into the mountain
villages, then hike until your legs ache, deep into the forest.
There, you can find Timbac Caves, with the mummies still resting in their original coffins.
But what's so fascinating about a few mummies?
These are not your typical mummies and far from what you would expect to see in Egypt.
Scientists believe they were created sometime between 1200 and 1500 by the mysterious Ibaloi
tribe.
The process behind the mummification is very unique and took a very long time.
After a person died, their body was washed and they were placed in a seated position.
Tobacco smoke was then blown into their mouth to dry them from the inside out over time.
They used salt and herbs and fire to slowly rid the body of fluids with smoke.
The entire process could take up to two years.
The bodies would then finally be placed in a wooden coffin and taken to the cave or placed
in special rock cut niches.
At this site there are over 200 man made burial caves but only 15 mummies have been discovered
so far.
The practice ended in the 1500s when Spain colonized the Philippines and Christianity
spread.
Today, this is one of the most endangered sites in the world.
It’s also one of the hardest to get to, which may also help to preserve the site!
9: Mysterious Ancient Stargate There is a place in Sri Lanka that is steeped
in mystery.
Known as Rajarata, or the Land of Kings, it is a complex that is now a UNESCO World Heritage
site but there are rumors it could be a stargate.
Located in Anuradhapura it's a mysterious place with hidden secrets.
Many say the area is often visited by unidentified flying objects.
Others claim there are paranormal happenings around the location that have never been explained.
The ruins here were originally established back in 377 BC.
The area is littered with ancient Buddhist temples and old stupas, and is very famous
for its architecture.
But one of the strangest parts of the archaeological site is a map known locally as Sakwala Chakraya,
which translates roughly to “universe cycle.”
The map is carved on the face of a rock and is said to be some kind of magical guide map
that can unlock the secrets of the universe.
The only issue is that archaeologists and historians don't understand how the map works
or even how to read it.
Nobody does.
Based on everything we know, the carving was probably made fairly recently in the 7th century
AD.
However, because the Buddhist monks in the area kept no written records, there is no
explanation for what the map could possibly mean or how it's supposed to be read.
Some claim that the entire ancient city acts as some kind of a stargate that can transport
human beings to another plane of existence or another world – but of course, nobody
can figure out how it works.
8: Eerie Remains in Pompeii Archaeologists working in Pompeii uncovered
more remains of two men who died in the volcanic eruption that decimated the city in the year
79.
Judging by the positions of the bodies, they were probably trying to leave the area during
a brief gap between the first explosion and the second.
The first explosion was actually pretty mild.
The volcano erupted and a small quantity of ash fell into the city.
But as people tried to run, the second explosion came that engulfed and pulverized everything
in its path.
One of the skeletons discovered here has been identified as a male between the age of 18
and 25.
Research on his skeleton showed that he had worked doing heavy labor most of his life.
This second skeleton belonged to a man in his 30s or 40s, dressed in better clothing.
Traces of a warm woollen cloak were found beneath his neck.
The suggestion is that the older man belonged to a higher class and the younger man may
have been his slave.
Their remains were even found in the hallway of a rather lavish villa.
Researchers created a cast using the impressions the victims bodies had made in the hardened
ash.
They died due to thermal shock with their feet and hands clenched.
Excavations at Pompeii are still ongoing with many interesting and eerie discoveries being
unearthed such as a victim’s brain that turned to glass and a horse with his rider.
7: Real UFOs On October 19, 2017, a telescope on the island
of Maui made one of the most shocking discoveries in space.
It spotted a strange object flying through the sky!
At first, the object was believed to be some kind of space rock in our solar system, coming
from very far away.
It was named Oumuamua, which means first scout from a distant place.
It wasn't discovered until it was already heading out of our solar system after making
its way around the sun.
Scientists were able to deduce that the mysterious object had come from the direction of the
star Vega.
Nobody ever managed to snap a picture of the object.
Astrophysicists had to estimate its size by looking at its brightness.
They figured the object was about a quarter of a mile across and 10 times bigger lengthwise.
It basically looked like a rocky cigar or a submarine.
Astronomers then concluded that the object was some type of space rock that had been
flung into our solar system, made a bit of a turn, and then kept on going.
But here's the deal.
Everyone wants to know if this thing really was just a rock or if it was a passing piece
of alien technology taking a shortcut through our backyard.
Sure, space objects can sometimes accelerate in strange ways because of evaporating gases
from their surface.
Was it a comet??
It moved like one but it didn’t have the classic tail of one.
And scientists detected absolutely no evaporating gases.
According to the New York Times, some cosmic theorists claim that the object acted a bit
more like a lightsail, a type of material that propels itself with power from sunlight
and starlight, which means the object was more of a vessel than a rock.
As time goes by, Oumuamua gets more and more mysterious!
What was this interstellar object??
How was it accelerating?
Was it a natural phenomenon?
Alien technology?
It is the first object ever seen flying into the solar system and back out again and we
still are no closer to knowing what it was.
6: Lost Village A lost village over 700 years old was recently
found on the side of a highway in England.
Exactly 4 buildings from back in the medieval days were found next to the shoulder of the
M74 Motorway.
So far, it's unclear what exactly the buildings had been used for.
Archaeologists have found a few artifacts buried along with them, including an ancient
iron dagger that may have been used as a talisman to protect the buildings from some kind of
evil magic.
There was also a whetstone, a spindle whorl, and a couple of coins from the 17th century
found buried in the dirt.
And considering how close these artifacts were to the highway, chances are that even
more incredible relics are waiting to be found – but are probably buried under asphalt.
Regarding the iron dagger, according to Natasha Ferguson, an archaeologist working closely
with the project, it was discovered underneath the foundation level of one of the houses,
and this was a practice often done in medieval England to safeguard a specific building and
its inhabitants from both magical harm and worldly harm.
But of course, we don’t know if the talisman ever worked in the end.
5: Horror on the Titanic In 2019, explorers dove down to the wreckage
of the Titanic to see what they could find.
Afterward, there were headlines all over the Internet about divers making a shocking and
even a bone-chilling discovery inside the wreckage.
But what exactly did the divers find on the Titanic that earned such fantastic headlines?
The bold truth is that the only thing the divers discovered is that the Titanic is deteriorating
at an extremely accelerated pace.
The truly shocking part is just what the Titanic actually looks like today as opposed to when
it sank on its maiden voyage back in 1912, killing over 1500 people.
Then again, that's exactly what 100 years under the ocean in the frigid waters off the
coast of Newfoundland, Canada will do to you.
According to the BBC, there were five dives done inside of a submersible.
Experts witnessed microbes living on the shipwreck, literally feasting on the iron itself and
creating strange rustic structures that make the ship look especially haunted.
These structures are so fragile that they will burst into dust if disturbed.
It’s believed that in just another handful of years, the Titanic will have been reduced
to almost nothing.
4: The Holy Lance The discovery of the Holy Lance happened a
very long time ago.
It was June 15th, 1098 when the army of the First Crusade came upon this holiest of artifacts.
What is the Holy Lance, you ask?
It’s allegedly the exact same spear that was used to stab into the side of Jesus Christ
while he hung on the cross.
The lance was discovered while the crusaders headed through Syria on their way into West
Jerusalem.
They captured the city of Antioch only to be besieged by a powerful Arab force.
Food ran out, morale plummeted, and things were looking pretty grim.
But then a peasant by the name of Peter Bartholomew claimed that he saw a vision in which St.
Andrew revealed to him the location of the Holy Lance.
It was hidden inside the cathedral of St. Peter in Antioch, right under their noses.
Workmen dug deep into the church floor and came out with the sacred lance, and this gave
the men the power they needed to defeat the attacking Arabs.
But where is the lance now?
That's the mysterious part.
Nobody has ever authenticated any aspect of the Holy Lance story, even though a piece
of the relic is said to currently be hidden underneath St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome,
ever since it was given to Pope Innocent VIII back in 1492 after the Turks overran Constantinople.
To this day, nobody has seen the Holy Lance with their own eyes.
3: Bodies in the Falls In 1969, something grisly was discovered at
the bottom of Niagara Falls.
It happened when the Army Corps of Engineers diverted the water to the Canadian side of
the falls for a few months as part of a project to look for erosion.
There were some issues with pedestrian bridges that were probably in need of being replaced
– and they wanted to do a full geological survey of the falls itself.
This required them to drain the water, and that was when they discovered the bodies of
an unidentified man and an unidentified woman.
Nobody knew who these people were or where they came from.
They could have accidentally fallen into the falls or jumped in on purpose and simply never
been missed.
They had also been underwater for so long that it was difficult to tell what year they’d
gone missing.
But besides that disturbing discovery, they also found millions of coins at the bottom
of the falls!
The coins were left mostly from tourists who flicked their spare change into the falls
to make a wish.
All the coins were removed though, as well as the bodies – and whoever got to keep
all that spare change probably made a pretty handsome fortune.
2: The Blinking Mummy This mummy goes back to the 1920s, when Rosalia
Lombardo died from pneumonia at the young age of 2.
Her father reached out to an embalmer and taxidermist to preserve his dead child for
eternity.
Over 100 years now since her death, Rosalia still looks like a sleeping child.
She can be found today resting underneath a glass case in the Capuchin Catacombs of
Palermo, in Italy.
But what's this about blinking?
Some visitors to the crypt have reported Rosalia opening and closing her eyes as if blinking
at them.
It almost looks like she opens her eyes to see if anyone's around, then discretely closes
them and goes back to sleep.
For years, nobody could understand what was going on.
Some thought it was the changing temperature inside the crypt making her eyelids move up
and down – but then in 2009, the curator of the catacombs discovered the little girl's
eyes weren't quite closed all the way, and depending which way the light hit her eyes
and what angle you were looking at her from, it looks like she’s blinking at you.
1: Ancient Honey In central Nigeria, archaeologists have discovered
the earliest honey jars in all of Africa.
Several pieces of terracotta pottery were unearthed at an excavation site, dated back
3500 years.
Archaeologists found evidence the jars once contained honey, since there were trace compounds
of beeswax inside of them.
This is really interesting because there hasn't been proof of ancient beekeeping anywhere
in Africa until now.
Historians were sure the ancient tribes had done some kind of beekeeping to produce consistent
honey, the oldest sweetener in the world, but they hadn't known any details about it.
We now know that these pottery jars were crafted from a very early civilization known as the
Nok culture, who came to power in 1500 BC.
The Nok lasted around 1500 years and were famous for their terracotta statues – many
of which are still around today.
Unfortunately, nobody is exactly sure how honey was used by these ancient people.
They definitely used some kind of heating process to isolate the pure honey, though
it's not clear if they actually used it with other foods, if they used the honey to make
primitive beer, or if it was used cosmetically or as a type of ancient adhesive.
Honey is very versatile and they could have been using it for anything.
Which of these awesome discoveries did you like the most?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching!
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